


Empty Sun

by orsumfenix



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Post-Apocalypse, does delores count as a character? five would say yes so There She Is, idk if this is gen or f/m but boy/mannequin doesn't feel v f/m so., just pretty grim i don't know what to tell ya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 21:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17856872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orsumfenix/pseuds/orsumfenix
Summary: One is the loneliest number. Or maybe it's Five.





	Empty Sun

**Author's Note:**

> there's no actual cannibalism but there is like...a consideration of it so be wary

1.

Five tries to keep a tally at first.

It’s been one day. Two. Four. Ten. After about twenty the marks start to look sad. He made them to count down to the day he could go home, but a tally counts up. It just gets further and further away.

He’s never going home.

“That’s not true,” he says out loud. It was weird at first, to talk and know you’ll never get a reply. Now it’s one of the only things keeping him sane. “I’m going home.”

The problem is that he is home. Just not at the right time.

The tally grows. Thirty-three. Forty-seven. Eighty.

A hundred.

Five stops after that. The hundredth-and-first day isn’t different than any others, not really, but it still feels dumb to keep adding tallies. You don’t get rescued on day one hundred and one.

When he realises he’s lost track of the days he goes back and rubs it out. Not much point in dwelling. Not when he’s got better things to be doing. Surviving, for instance. Surviving would be nice.

Better get to it.

2.

He buries his siblings after a week.

It’s fucking disgusting. He waited too long, they’ve already started to rot. He pulls at Allison’s arm and the skin comes away in his hand, soft and sticky.

Some part of him thinks if he’d acted sooner, he could’ve been eating flesh instead of cockroach. He’s disgusted by the thought as soon as he has it.

Five can’t find a shovel but there’s a piece of metal shaped similar enough to a trowel. It takes a while, but it’s fine. He’s got time to kill.

After the four graves are done he makes a fifth. He’s burying Numbers One to Four so it only seems right to make a Number Five. He couldn’t find Ben or Vanya – probably for the best, they were his favourites anyways – so he marks their numbers beside the fifth grave in the dirt.

Only one hole left to fill.

He thinks about it for a while. He actually goes ahead and sleeps in the grave one night, but the smell gets too bad and he wakes up retching.

Seriously, he almost pukes the way he did after the Twinkie Disaster, and it’s not an experience he’s keen to repeat.

Five doesn’t fill the hole with anything, in the end. Not with dirt and not with his own dead body.

It’s not like it matters. He’s moving soon. He can’t stand the sight of the Academy anymore.

3.

There’s a department store that’s just about standing, and thank _god_ there’s coats.

He seems to have landed in summer, which was a godsend, but it won’t be summer forever. Better get ready for harsh weather.

Five’s sifted through about half the coats when he spots her. The other mannequins are destroyed, just a severed arm or head here and there, but she’s almost half there.

“Hi,” he says, slowly lowering the coat in his arms. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

She doesn’t reply, but it’s the only non-sibling-corpse face he’s seen in a while. Five smiles.

“Me? Oh, I’m just a supreme fucking idiot. Made a huge mistake that cost me everything. And the world ended while I was gone.” He tilts his head. “You’re still here, though. You must be pretty tough.”

The silence is starting to feel less silent. He takes a step forward.

“My name’s Number Five. What’s yours?”

4.

Vanya wrote a book.

At first Five searches through hungrily, looking for any mention of him he can find, any evidence that maybe he gets back one day, maybe he’ll show up the day after he left and she’ll have written about it here –

She hasn’t.

Five throws the book in his trash pile.

He digs it out eventually. Partly because Delores kept telling him he’d regret it if he didn’t, and partly because – they’re his family. They grew up without him.

“They probably grew up to be walking disasters,” he tells Delores as he gets himself comfortable, carefully flicking it open to the first page. The picture of Vanya on the back makes her look like a right miserable sod, but it’s the only idea he has of what she grew up to look like. He was an idiot to throw this book away. “Yeah, I know. Yeah. I’ll take my time. I loved them.”

There’s a whole chapter on him. The fifth chapter, of course. He wouldn’t expect anything less from Vanya.

Apparently the day he disappeared they thought he was just in a huff. By the second day they were starting to get worried. By the third they called the police.

Five never came back. Vanya was convinced he would. She made him a snack every night. His stomach rumbles at the thought. He could really do with those snacks now.

She always left the lights on so if he came back he’d know they were home.

If there’s one good thing about being the last person on Earth, it’s that there’s no one there to see you ugly-cry. Well. There’s Delores, but she doesn’t mind.

_Eventually Dad hung a painting of Number Five on the wall, like he was trying to compensate. But you can’t replace a person with a painting._

He traces the words with shaking fingers once his vision’s un-blurred enough to read them. You can’t replace a person with a painting. You can’t replace a person with a mannequin, either, but damn if you can’t give it your best go.

Did they feel his absence that strongly? Six without the seventh? It doesn’t seem fair that they got to be sad about him. They all had each other.

He’s one without six. He’s alone.

Other than that, the book is a big fat non-surprise. Ben died, because one of them was going to eventually. They all fucked off and became disasters in different places. Luther stayed. So did Five’s painting and Ben’s statue.

Vanya’s book finishes five years too early, but he knows what happens next. They fight together and die.

So does everyone else.

5.

He decides it’s his birthday.

Not like there’s anyone around to dispute it, so it’s his birthday. Happy birthday, Five! You are: fourteen! Officially older than all of your siblings. Officially younger than all of your siblings.

You are: fifteen! You are: sixteen! You are: seventeen! You are:

“I’m eighteen,” he slurs, miming blowing out candles. Delores isn’t too happy with him but whatever. It’s his birthday. Probably. Maybe. “And legally allowed to drink in a whole bunch of countries. Like England! Fuck, I would’ve loved to go to England. Y’know, before it was destroyed.”

He first got drunk years ago when he discovered an untouched cellar of wine, but it’s the thought that counts. As long as he doesn’t have enough to cause alcohol poisoning there’s no problem. He’s just having a little fun!

He deserves a little fun.

“You know, Delores,” he starts, tilting his head back. Which is a mistake, yuck, that’s ash in his eyes. He blinks a bunch before focusing back on her. “When I was a kid I’d have given anything to have my birthday to myself.”

Five doesn’t even need to finish the thought. It’s obvious what he means.

There should be seven birthday cakes in front of him.

Now there's none.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! <3


End file.
